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By Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, as adapted by Joel Ivany and Christopher Mokrzewski. Directed by Joel Ivany. Against the Grain Theatre. To June 2, Burroughes Bldg., 639 Queen St. W. againstthegraintheatre.com

Toronto’s Against the Grain Theatre has not only updated Mozart’s ever popular 1786 opera The Marriage of Figaro to Toronto circa 2013, but has done so with all the panache and subversive zing of the original.

Seeing the title changed to Figaro’s Wedding is but one clue to a production in which stage director Joel Ivany and music director Christopher Mokrzewski have torn apart Lorenzo Da Ponte’s original libretto, translated it into English and staged it as a wedding of the sort that hundreds of Torontonians will be part of this summer.

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Thanks to a brilliant cast and remarkable attention to detail for a young company, Figaro’s Wedding is a spectacularly fine night of theatre, singing, laughs and drama.

In the Italian-language original, the servants, Figaro included, slyly subvert the established social order. This is carried over in the update to the relationship between a junior employee (Figaro) and his overbearing boss (Alberto, Count Almaviva in the original).

Some of the characters are rearranged, but the truths and taunts of love and its potential betrayals survive.

The setting, a hip event space on the top floor of the old Burroughes furniture store and warehouse at Queen and Bathurst Sts., has the audience move between two different rooms over the opera’s four acts.

The music is provided by a string quartet (the Music in the Barns Chamber Ensemble) augmented by Mokrzewski ably conducting everyone from the piano.

The singers are excellent, in voice as well as acting. Miriam Khalil delivers the right mix of innocence and wile as Susanna. Bass-baritone Stephen Hegedus is a wonderfully earnest Figaro. Lisa DiMaria’s Rosina is a wonderful foil to her philandering husband, Alberto, well sung by Alexander Dobson.

Teiya Kasahara deserves special mention for her skilful turn as Cherubino, changed into a butch lesbian with the hots for Rosina.

Wednesday night’s premiere performance was an, um, unadulterated delight from beginning to end. So raise a toast to this wonderful marriage of classic and modern, and rush to get yourself a ticket before they’re all gone.

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